Capitalists and Socialists

Capitalists and Socialists

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: an addendum was added in 2026.]

Traditionally, socialism meant governmental ownership of the means of production, and capitalism meant private ownership of production. Now, these two terms mean the control of production and distribution through a government-business partnership. The difference between the two is that socialists make government the senior partnership while capitalists make big business the senior partner. (What most people mean when they use the term “capitalism” is a free market, free enterprise economy with minimum governmental intervention. What true capitalists and socialists mean by “capitalism” is a highly governmentally controlled economy for the benefit of the capitalists who control the government. “Socialist” as used in this article means a proponent of centralized governmental economic and social planning that may, but usually does not, require governmental ownership of production and distribution.) Because both promote similarly and frequently the same agendas, capitalists and socialists are often indistinguishable.

S.D. Parks identifies three classes in modern America: “managers (institutional elites), producers (taxpaying small business-owners, the middle and working classes), and dependents (nontaxpaying dependents of government).” (Chronicles, Nov. 2021, p. 3.) In the first class, managers, are found the capitalist and socialist oligarchs. However, only a small number of this class comprises the oligarchs.

Both capitalists and socialists are adherents of a powerful government with centralized planning. Most capitalists and socialists favor some kind of fascism, such as democratic socialism, national socialism, corporatism, and government-business partnership. Most socialists prefer democratic socialism (if they control the elections), which is now morphing into national socialism with Whites and the COVID unvaccinated replacing the Jews. Capitalists prefer government-business partnership followed by corporatism, which the plutocrats favor.

Under capitalism and socialism, an elite controls the economy. (At least, they attempt to control the economy. Unfortunately for them, the market is more powerful than any cabal, which is why centralized economic planning always fails unless the objective is to impoverish the masses.)

Another of the many things that capitalists and socialists have in common is that both want the people to be interchangeable cogs. Consequently, racial, ethnic, and sexual differences are undesirable. Recognition of them interferes with the notion that people are just producers and consumers. The purpose of the masses is to buy what they produce after the elite, the oligarchs, have taken their share of their production. Beyond being slaves of the oligarchic elite, the people, the masses, have no utility.

Accordingly, both capitalists and socialists promote an inclusive economy where the people are homogeneous cogs. Thus, they promote feminism, transgenderism, homosexualism, and racial integration. Moreover, both support unlimited immigration, especially the immigration of nonwhites, and affirmative action. Loyalty to the state and corporation supersede loyalty to the family and community.

Although inclusiveness and diversity contradict each other and are incompatible, both capitalists and socialists support and promote them. (While inclusiveness requires integration and amalgamation, diversity requires segregation and separation.) They may have different reasons for supporting them; nevertheless, the results are the same.

Likewise, both promote equality of the masses. However, the oligarchs, the plutocrats who are the ruling elite, under no circumstance want equality with the masses. Instead, they are always to remain the masters of the masses. 

Furthermore, both support the Communist orchestrated civil rights movement and the concomitant race riots. Consequently, capitalists and socialists are united in their support of Black Lives Matter and Antifa and their riots and the social justice agenda. Further, they are united in their disdain of Whites — except they seem not to disdain White oligarchs, and, therefore, both promote Critical Race Theory.

Both have used the COVID plandemic to advance the police state. To make the people easier to control, they seek to impose vaccine passports.

Both support and promote the welfare state and the accompanying warfare state. The oligarchs use the welfare state and the warfare state to control the people and to keep them loyal to the government that the oligarchs control. However, the capitalist oligarchs lean toward the warfare state because it transfers wealth and power from the masses to the plutocratic oligarchs, while the socialist oligarchs lean toward the welfare state.

Being advocates of progressivism, both capitalists and socialists have little use for true conservatives and traditionalists. Capitalists and socialists are universalists, cosmopolites, and globalists. Consequently, they oppose particularists, localists, and nationalists. 

Moreover, they abhor independent thinking. For this reason, public schools indoctrinate instead of teaching critical thinking.

Being the oligarchs in a capitalist state, capitalists control the politicians and bureaucrats and, therefore, the government and state. Likewise, the socialist oligarchs in a socialist state control the politicians and bureaucrats and, therefore, the government and state. Both seek to use the power of the state and government for their own benefit.

If one questions capitalists supporting these socialist ideas, one needs only to look at where capitalist foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, George Soros-Open Society Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other capitalists’ foundations, spend their money. Likewise, the boards of many corporations support socialist causes, such as feminism, transgenderism, homosexualism, inclusiveness, diversity, Critical Race Theory, and the restructuring of American society. Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tech, Big Banks, Big Med, Big Ed, and Big Business in general push the progressive (socialist) agenda, such as global warming, abortion, and population reduction.

The communist version of socialism is the ultimate monopoly. Since all capitalists want a monopoly for their business, most capitalists do not find communism incompatible with capitalism if the capitalists control the government.

The capitalist and socialist oligarchs have reprobate minds. They are narcissists, sadists, and sociopaths. They are the enemy of the people.

Addendum

After I published this article, I came across an excellent definition of “capitalism.” In The South and the American Empire: Essays (Columbia, South Carolina:  Shotwell Publishing LLC, 2026), Joseph R. Stromberg defines “capitalism” as “any economy with private ownership of capital, production for profit, rational accounting, marlet prices, and free (propertyless) wage laborers.” (p. 244) Furthermore, under capitalism, private enterprise prevails over private property. Additionally, centralized financial capital is promoted.

American-style capitalism grew through “active, open-handed federal or state assistance for favored businesses through loans, subsidies, grants, favorable statutes and judicial decisions, and other institutional favors, with little real obligation of these businesses toward society or state.” (p. 274) Moreover, corporations became legal “persons” with potentially perpetual life. Property morphed from the tangible, e.g., land and commodities, to the intangible, e.g., stock certificates and bonds — paper. Furthermore, commodity money, e.g., gold coins, transmuted into credit money, e.g., today’s federal reserve notes. Corporate management replaced ownership. Agriculture was sacrificed for industrialization and banking.

Copyright © 2023, 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Resisting Oppressive Governments

Resisting Oppressive Governments

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The texts of the verses cited in this article are given in the appendix that follows.]

In Glad Tidings of the Kingdom of God, issue 1658, p. 18, the Christadelphians argue that good Christians should not resist, but should obey implicitly, a despotic government no matter how tyrannical or evil it is. Other denominations also hold this same position. (When it advances the liberal or progressive agendas, many liberal churches interpret Romans 13:1-7 and Matthews 5:38-42 as the Christadelphians do. However, when governments act contrary to the liberal or progressive agendas, these liberal churches reject the Christadelphian interpretation.)

The Glad Tidings’ article uses the Nazi government of Germany as an example. Good Christians should not have opposed the Nazis rounding up Jews and other undesirables and sending them to concentration and labor camps. This included not opposing the Nazis verbally as such opposition was illegal, either implicitly or explicitly. Later, when the Nazis executed millions of Jews, good Christians should not have objected.

On the contrary, good Christians, being obedient to the government, would have aided the government. If they knew where a Jew was hiding, they would have informed the government as required by law. They certainly would not have hidden or aided a Jew as that was against the law.

That is because the Nazis were only obeying God’s will. According to the Christadelphians, God wanted the Nazis to execute large numbers of Jews so that He could use the slaughter as an excuse to drive the Palestinians from their homes and turn Palestine into the Jewish state of Israel, which has the reputation of being the pornographic capital of the world.

To support their position of implicit obedience to despotic evil governments, Christadelphians cite Romans 13:1–7, which is a despot’s favorite biblical passage. A good Christian should not resist any government no matter how evil it is because no government is a terror to good works but is always a terror to evil. Moreover, governments are ministers of God for good and only punish doers of evil. (If Paul practiced what he wrote as most people interpret this passage, he would have never been jailed. However, he was jailed several times.)

Consequently, if a despot declared that all children less than 13 years old are to be turned over to the government for sexual pleasures and tortures, good Christians will turn their children over to the government. Thus, being implicitly obedient to the government, all good Christians would turn their children over to the government for the pleasures of their pedophiliac overlords, who want the children to satisfy their sexual deviations culminating in torturing the children to death. These Christians are obeying the government as the Christadelphian interpretation of Roman 13 tells them to do. Moreover, they would insist that the government take their teenagers per Matthew 5:38-42 as the Christadelphians interpret this passage.

If the government decrees that all Christians are to be executed and that they have to appear before the local magistrate to receive a lethal injection, Christadelphians would be first in line for their shots. Other Christians who understand Romans 13:1-7 as the Christadelphians understand it would be standing with them. (Moreover, following their understanding of Matthew 5:38-42, Christadelphians would report every Christian whom they knew to the authorities.) After all, all rulers are ministers of God (Romans 13:4) and have been ordained by Him (Romans 13:1). As such, they are God’s avengers to doers of evil (Romans 13:4). Since the government has decreed that Christians must be executed, then Christians must be doers of evil. If the mass execution of Jews were part of God’s plan, then the mass execution of Christians must also be part of God’s plan. No Christian could object without going against the will of God.

However, Christadelphians are pacifists who resist the draft and serving in the armed forces. Thus, they show their inconsistency and hypocrisy. By resisting being part of the Nazi army, they were resisting God’s will of mass execution of Jews.

Nevertheless, Christadelphians do give themselves an out. They cite Acts 4:19–20. According to their understanding of this passage, a Christian has to disobey the government when it tells them to act contrary to God’s will. How does a Christian know what is God’s will? If the Nazi murder of millions of people is God’s will, what is not God’s will?

APPENDIX

The following verses are quoted from the World English Bible.

Romans 13:1-7

13 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authority withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the authority, 4 for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil. 5 Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of God’s service, continually doing this very thing. 7 Therefore give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if customs, then customs; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Matthew 5:38-42

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. 41 Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and don’t turn away him who desires to borrow from you.

Acts 4:19-20

19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves, 20 for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Reason for the Loss

Reason for the Loss

Thomas Allen

As the red wave has turned into the red drop, Republican and conservative commentators look for an explanation to explain the loss. Following are some of the excuses for the loss.

1. Trump. Blaming Trump is the most popular one. If true, this means that people loathe Trump so much that they would rather have the Democrats destroy the country than have Trump as president and his endorsed candidates as Representatives, Senators, and governors.

2. McConnell. According to this excuse, Senator McConnell, a RINO, prefers being the leader of the loyal opposition and, thus, having no responsibilities. Moreover, McConnell failed to provide a vision for the Republican Party to follow or any programs and policies to solve the problems and disasters that the Democrats have inflicted on the country. Also, he failed to fund close races that Republicans could have won while funding races that the Republicans were going to win anyway.

3. McCarthy. PACs associated with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spent money on Republican candidates running in primaries against make-American-great-again (MAGA) candidates. Consequently, money that could have been used against Democratic candidates in the general election was used against Republican MAGA candidates in the primary elections. Thus, McCarthy placed defeating MAGA candidates in primary elections above defeating Democratic candidates in the general election.

4. Abortion. Most Americans seem to want to offer their unborn and even born babies as sacrifices to Moloch. (Moloch is a pagan god who is worshiped by sacrificing children.) While most Democrats support abortion for any reason and up to and even beyond birth, many Republicans do not. (Most abortions are for birth control. Rarely is an abortion performed to save a mother’s life or for rape or incest.) Thus, Democrats turned abortion into the winning issue that exceeded the importance of the horrendous economic problems, the destruction of the country by third-world nonwhite aliens, crime, and the growing possibility of a nuclear war.

5. Failure to Keep up with the Times. Republicans have failed to keep up with the changes in how elections are conducted. Unlike Democrats, Republicans have not used these election changes. While Democrats have become masters of ballet harvesting, Republicans have not. Republicans still mostly depend on voting on election day. However, Republicans need to follow the Democrats’ example of voting early (but what prevents the Democratic vote counters from losing these early Republican votes). However, ballot harvesting and early voting are only minor issues. Voting machines malfunctions only in predominately Republican precincts and voting machines that switch votes from Republicans to Democrats are major problems and strongly suggest stealing elections. Other major issues that suggest stealing elections are shipping in truckloads of ballots even from other States mostly marked for Democrats, preventing Republican poll watchers from observing the ballot count, and frequently violating State election laws. Another scheme (scam) is mailing ballots to Republicans with incorrect addresses; the ballots are then returned to the board of election giving them legal ballots that can be filled out for Democrats. Republicans cannot overcome these disadvantages because Democrats and RINOs control the boards of elections and, therefore, the vote counting in key cities and the voting machines. Thus, Democrats can easily add Democrat votes and lose Republican votes. Moreover, Democrats can get judges to change the voting laws for the benefit of Democrats; Republicans have been unable or unwilling to do this. Furthermore, Republicans have difficulty in finding a judge to hear cases about election fraud and illegalities, and if they do find one, a higher court overturns the case. Consequently, for the Republicans to become the dominant party in the federal government ever again, they must out-cheat the Democrats.

6. Young Voters. Voters less than 30 years of age overwhelmingly voted for Democrats. Why? Because most young voters are stupid or ignorant. The ruling elite has brainwashed the young into supporting Democrats because Democrats support the agendas of the ruling elite with much more alacrity than do Republicans. Schools and universities have dumbed down and indoctrinated students so that they support the ruling elite’s agenda. The ruling elite has taught the young to hate America and Whites and to support globalism and sexual perversions. Consequently, the young vote for Democrats, who want to destroy America and genocide Whites and who promote globalism and sexual perversions.

7. Wokeism. Democrats promote the woke agenda with much more vigor than do Republicans. With alacrity, Democrats push granting special privileges to the alphabet people (LBGT+). As advocates for transgenders, Democrats are more likely to approve of mutilating children’s bodies. Democrats also champion critical race theory, which teaches the hatred of Whites because Whites are the cause of all America’s and the world’s problems — only people of color, excluding East Asians, can save humanity. Moreover, Democrats are much more likely to eliminate bail for violent crimes than are Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats favor open borders and unlimited nonwhite immigration while Republicans weakly oppose them. Thus, Republicans support and promote the woke agenda with less enthusiasm than do Democrats. Consequently, Republicans lost because they are not radical enough on social issues to satisfy wokesters. Wokesters hate Whites, Christianity, and Western Civilization and love Satan and sin so much that they will do anything to annihilate Whites, Christianity, and Western Civilization — even if it means annihilating themselves. Since Democrats are more supportive of the woke-driven agenda than are Republicans, wokesters, who seem to vote in greater numbers than their victims, voted Democrats into office.

8. January 6. Many voters vehemently disagreed with supporters of Trump taking action at the Capitol Building in an attempt to prevent a stolen election. What these people overlook are the Capitol guards opening the doors to the Capitol Building and waving people inside, Democratic provocateurs in the crowd trying to incite a riot, and Democrats refusing Trump’s offer of 20,000 natural guardsmen to protect the Capitol.

9. Money. The Democrats and their supporting PACs spent significantly more money than did the Republicans and their supporting PACs, especially in close races. Accordingly, the Democratic Party is no longer the party of the workingman and the little guy, except for welfare recipients and nonwhites. It is the party of big money and big business, and, consequently, it raises more money than the Republican Party.

Whatever the cause of the red wave becoming the red drop is, most Republican and conservative commentators are certain about one thing. Just as no election was stolen in 2020, so no election was stolen in 2022. However, when the number of ballots counted exceeds the number of registered voters, election fraud exists.

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 2

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 2

Thomas Allen

Negro Voting

Edmonds reveals the low opinion about Blacks held by the typical Republican. He quotes an 1880 issue of the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, which he describes as one of the boldest Republican organs that frankly betrayed its party’s real feeling toward the Negro race, “As an office seeker, the negro [sic] has more brass in a square inch of his face, more rapaciousness for office, than his barbarian masters ever dared to possess. The Southern brigadier wants office and place, but he is willing to fight for them, or vote for them; at the drop of the hat he will shoot and cut for them; he does not whine like a whipped cur, or demand like a beggar on horseback, as the nigger does. Let the nigger first learn to vote before he asks for office. The brazen-jawed nigger is but a trifle less assuming, insolent and imperious in his demands than the lantern-jawed brigadiers; the educated nigger is a more capacious liar than his barbarian masters ever were, or dared to be.

“The greatest mistake the Republican party ever made was taking the nigger at a single bound and placing on his impenetrable skull the crown of suffrage. It is a wrong to him and to us to let him wield the ballot. The nigger is necessarily an ignoramus. The free nigger, we repeat, is a fraud.” (p. 220.)

(The reason for giving the Negro suffrage was to maintain Republican political power. Thus, the reason for the fifteenth amendment, which gave Black males the vote, was to maintain Republican control in the North. This amendment only applied in the Northern States; the Negro already had the vote in all the defunct Confederate States when this amendment was ratified.)

Grant’s Drinking

About Grant’s alcoholism, Edmonds writes, “From early manhood General Grant was afflicted with the drink disease.” (p. 221.) Then he quotes Wendell Phillips, insane hater of the South, and General Don Piatt, an abolitionist (p. 221).

“Phillips said: ‘Grant can never stand before a bottle of whiskey without falling down.’

“General Piatt, in ‘Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union,’ says: ‘Grant’s habit of drink lost us thousands and thousands of patriotic lives. The attempt to conceal this is not only pitiable, but hopeless.’”

Continuing, Edmonds writes, “The terrible slaughter of Union soldiers at Cold Harbor was charged to Grant’s drunkenness. Major-General Wm. F. Smith, in a confidential letter to Senator Foote, July 30, 1864, states that soon after Grant had taken a pledge to drink nothing intoxicating, he (Grant) called at his (Smith's) headquarters, and asked for whiskey, and drank so often he went away drunk, and General Butler saw him. A short while before this Grant had written to Washington asking that General Butler be relieved from that department, because he (Grant) ‘could not trust Butler with the command of the troops in the movements about to be made.’ Instructions were sent to Grant to remove Butler. Butler heard of this and hurried to see Grant. General Smith wrote Senator Foote that he heard direct from Grant’s headquarters, and also from another source, that General Butler threatened Grant that he would expose his drunken habits if the order was not revoked. The order was revoked, and Butler remained in command, although Grant had said he was unfit to be trusted.” (p. 221.)

Some English Views of Reconstruction

Edmonds quotes two English historians on their views of Reconstruction (p. 238).

“Percy Gregg, the English historian, in his history of the United States, says: ‘The reconstruction policy was at once dishonest and vindictive. The Congressional majority (Republican) were animated not merely by selfish designs, but by rabid hatred of the South’s people which had fought so gallantly for what the best jurists of America believed to be their moral and constitutional right.’

“Another English writer of great eminence, Anthony Trollope, was in this country during the reconstruction period, and wrote of it thus: ‘I hold that tyranny never went beyond this. Never has there been a more terrible condition imposed upon a fallen people. For an Italian to feel an Austrian over him, for a Pole to feel a Russian over him, has been bad indeed, but it has been left for the political animosity of the Republicans of the North — men who themselves reject all contact with the negro — to subject the Southern people to dominance from the African who yesterday was their slave. The dungeon chains were knocked off the captive in order that he may be harnessed as a beast of burden to the captive's chariot.’

“We will give another passage from Gregg, the English historian: ‘The devastation of the Pallatine [sic] hardly exceeded the desolation and misery wrought by the Republican invasion and conquest of the South. No conquered nation of modern days, not Poland under the heel of Nicholas, not Spain or Russia under that of Napoleon, suffered from such individual and collective ruin, or saw before them so frightful a prospect as the States dragged by force, in April, 1865. under the “best government in the world.”’ (Page 375, Gregg's History of United States.)” [Palatine was a territory in Germany that lost about 90 percent of its population during the Thirty Years War.]

Not So Random Quotations

Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist:

– “He [Lincoln] is a first-rate second-rate man; that is all of him.”

– “Mr. Lincoln is a politician; politicians are like the bones of a horse’s fore shoulder; not a straight one in it.”

– “The Constitution is a mistake! Tear it to pieces! Our aim is disunion!”

– “The Republican party is in no sense a national party. It is a party of the North, organized against the South.”

– “We confess that we intend to trample on the Constitution of this country. We of New England are not a law-abiding community. God be thanked for it! We are disunionists; we want to get rid of this Union.”

William Lloyd Garrison, a New England abolitionist:

– “The Republican party is moulding public sentiment in the right direction for the dissolution of the Union.”

Rev. Andrew Forbes:

– “There never was an hour when this blasphemous and infamous Union should have been made; now the hour must be prayed for when it will be dashed to pieces.”

Parson Pryiic, a red hot Republican:

“A dissolution of the Union is what a large portion of the Republicans are driving at.”

William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State:

– “Our Constitution is to us of the North a great danger. The Southerners are using it as a shield.”

– “Only a despotic and imperial government can subjugate seceding States.”

– “The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war.” 

Ward H. Lamon, Lincoln’s self-appointed bodyguard:

– “As a people, Lincoln thought negroes would only be useful to those who were at the same time their masters, and the foes of those who sought their good.”

– “Lincoln always contended that the cheapest way of getting rid of the negro was for the Nation to buy the slaves and send them out of the country.”

– “He [Lincoln] never at any time favored the admission of negroes into the body of the electors in his State, or in the States of the South.”

General Don Piatt, an abolitionist:

– “Lincoln well knew that the North was not fighting to free slaves, nor was the South fighting to preserve slavery.”

– “I found that Mr. Lincoln could no more feel sympathy for that wretched [Negro] race than he could for the horse he worked or the hog he killed.”

Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio:

– “There is really no Union now between the North and the South. I believe no two nations on earth entertain feelings of more bitter rancor toward each other than these two peoples.”

Senator Stephen Douglas:

– “The fact can no longer be disguised that many Republican Senators desire war and disunion under pretense of saving the Union. For partisan reasons they are anxious to destroy the Union. They want this done without holding them responsible before the people.”

the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, a Republican newspaper:

– “The Stalwarts do not care a fig for the Constitution, and will trample it under foot today as did Lincoln and the Union hosts from ’61 to ’65.”

an Iowa editor:

– “Abraham Lincoln kicked the Constitution into the Capitol cellar, and there it remained innocuous until the war ended.”

Judge Yaples, in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 1880:

– “Republican hate is grounded on the fact that the people of the South will not join the Republican party.”

Unknown:

– “The people of Raleigh, N. C, were astonished to find that Sherman’s army were Christian gentlemen.”

George Edmonds:

– “The underlying cause of every conflict between man and man, tribe and tribe, country and country, has been on the one side a craving for power, on the other side an effort to escape that power.”

– “So long had the gospel of hate been preached, those New Englanders had come to hate the South so venomously they wanted to force her out of the Union she loved.”

– “All abolitionists believed in the right of secession. All hated the Union and wanted to break it to pieces.”

– “Before the South seceded, the foremost men in the Republican party openly maintained the right of secession.”

– “Lincoln was the first President who usurped the power to rule the American people.”

– “The whole reconstruction period was a deadly war on Southern people, and the more base and cowardly because waged on unarmed men and women.”

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 1.

More Southern articles.

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 1

Review of Facts and Falsehoods – Part 1

Thomas Allen

Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865 (Memphis, Tennessee: A. R. Taylor & Co., 1904) by George Edmonds is an excellent book and worth reading. Edmonds reveals the real Abraham Lincoln before he was deified.

Before Lincoln’s deification, most Republicans, including his cabinet, did not respect him, and many despised him. Further, they perceived him as incompetent, opportunistic, and indecisive and as a political hack and a politician in the worst sense of the word. Fame was what Lincoln wanted. Assassination was the best thing to ever happen to him, for it brought him the fame for which he lusted and his deification.

Edmonds shows that the founding principles of the Republican Party were hatred of the Constitution and Southerners, disunion, and the concentration of political power in the federal government. Being a White man’s party, the Republican Party had little use for Blacks — free or slave. 

He discusses the hatred of the South that many Republican leaders possessed from Lincoln’s War to 1904 when he published his book. This hatred of the South still exists today albeit in a milder form when conservatives, e.g., Beck and Coulter, express it. This hatred reveals itself in the left’s destruction of Southern culture, history, and memorials with the support of scalawags including most Southern Republican and Democratic governors, and the complacency of most conservatives.

The following are some excerpts from his book.

Comparison of Buchanan with Lincoln

Edmonds quotes the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, 1879, which fearlessly propounded Republican doctrines, “No reasonable man will say that President Buchanan was wrong when he said that the North had no constitutional right to coerce seceding States, but what of that? Up jumped Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, and kicked the Constitution into the Capitol cellar, and called for 75,000 armed men to march down and conquer the South, and when the 75,000 proved not enough, the rail splitter called for more, and more, until he had over 2,000,000 armed men, and he sent ’em down to burn and pillage, to kill, conquer or annihilate traitors to our glorious Union, the Constitution all the while in the Capitol cellar." (pp. 23-24)

About Rebellion

Edmonds writes, “The history of man’s struggle for freedom shows that rebellions have won for mankind all the freedom they possess. Did ever any ruler on earth, of his own will, loosen his grip on the liberties of those he ruled? Every inch of liberty the English-speaking people now have was gained by rebellions. The colonies of ’76 won freedom by rebellion. Rebellion means resistance to lawful rule. George III was the lawful King of the Colonies. At no period in the existence of this Union has one State or group of States held lawful rule over any other State or group of States. The most stupendous falsehood ever told on this continent is the falsehood that the Southern people rebelled. There can be no rebellion except against lawful rulers. The Republican party of the 6o’s was guilty of the monstrous crime of usurping the power to rule the Southern States. Not only did Republicans pour out the virulence of hate on the South’s men, her women came in for a share, and a large share they received.” (p. 245)

Lincoln’s Response to Medill’s Protest to Lincoln’s Order for More Troops

About Lincoln rebuking Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune and Republican politician, when he protested Lincoln ordering more troops from Chicago, Edmonds cites Ida Tarbell, who wrote a biography of Lincoln. Miss Tarbell relates what Medill told her about this incident, “In 1864 when the call for extra troops came, Chicago revolted. Chicago had sent 22,000 and was drained. There were no young men to go, no aliens except what was already bought. The citizens held a mass meeting and appointed three men, of whom I (Medill) was one, to go to Washington and ask Stanton (the War Secretary) to give Cook County a new enrollment. On reaching Washington we went to Stanton with our statement. He refused. Then we went to President Lincoln. ‘I cannot do it,’ said Lincoln, ‘but I will go with you to Stanton and hear the arguments of both sides.’ So we all went over to the War Department together. Stanton and General Frye were there, and they both contended that the quota should not be changed. The argument went on for some time, and was finally referred to Lincoln, who had been silently listening. When appealed to, Lincoln turned to us with a black and frowning face: ‘Gentlemen.’ he said, with a voice full of bitterness, ‘after Boston, Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest opposed the South, as New England opposed the South. It is you, Medill, who is largely responsible for making blood flow as it has. You called for war until you had it. I have given it to you. What you have asked for you have had. Now you come here begging to be let off from the call for more men, which I have made to carry on the war you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Go home and raise your 6,000 men. And you, Medill, you and your Tribune have had more influence than any other paper in the Northwest in making this war. Go home and send me those men I want.’

“Medill says that he and his companions, feeling guilty, left without further argument. They returned to Chicago, and 6,000 more men from the working classes were dragged from their homes, their families, forced into the ranks to risk limbs and lives in a war they had no part in making, while the men that forced that war on an unwilling people remained at home in comfort and safety, and made enormous fortunes by the war.” (p. 162)

To this, Edmonds adds, “Is it any wonder educated workingmen often become anarchists and hate all governments?” (p. 163)

Lincoln on Courts

About Lincoln’s preference for using military courts instead of civil courts, Edmonds writes, “Daniel Webster objected to military courts because, as he said, ‘military courts are organized to convict.’ The so-called humane Lincoln objected to civil courts because one member of the jury might be more ready to hang the panel than to hang the man! Lincoln seems to assume that men arrested by military officials must be guilty, therefore should have no chance of escaping conviction by trial in a Civil court. Lincoln also objects to civil courts because they only convict on charges of crime well defined by law. Military courts convict on the most frivolous pretexts, or no pretext at all. The chief thing necessary to military conviction is that some man in high place should desire the man to be convicted and put out of his way. In the Albany address reference was made to the suspension of the habeas corpus. To this Mr. Lincoln replied as follows: ‘The suspension of the habeas corpus was for the purpose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot be proved guilty of any defined crime.’” (p. 212)

Continuing, Edmonds writes that the above declaration is not Lincoln's worst. Then, he quotes Lincoln’s comment to the Albany committee of Democrats, “Arrests are not made so much for what has been done as for what possibly might be done. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help the enemy.” (p. 212).

Then, Edmonds writes, “Is it any wonder under rulings like this that 38,000 arbitrary arrests threw 38,000 innocent men and women into American bastiles [sic] to languish for months or years, and many therein to die?” (p. 212.)

Moreover, Edmonds writes, “Under Lincoln’s definition silence became an act of treason. A man with a sore throat, unable to talk aloud, if he happened to be present when the Lincoln Government was discussed, was liable to arrest and imprisonment in the most distant fortress in the land.” (p. 212).

Next, Edmonds quotes Lincoln writing, “Much more if a man talks ambiguously, talks with ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by imprisonment or death) this man will actively commit treason. Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the Constitution, but to prevent treason.” About this quotation, Edmonds comments, “That is to prevent the sort of treason never before known on earth — the treason of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘ands’ — the treason made and invented by Abraham Lincoln, the first President of the Republican party.” (pp. 212-213.)

Seward’s Character

To describe the character of William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, Edmonds quotes General Piatt, a personal friend and great admirer of Seward, “Seward began life as a school teacher in the South. He had been treated with condescending indifference by the unenlightened masters, which treatment he never forgot. Seward looked down on the white men of the South in the same cynical way that he did upon the slaves. He had no pity for the slaves, and no dislike for the master. He was a great favorite with the last named. He had contempt for them, which he concealed as carefully as he did his contempt for the United States Constitution. Seward had trained himself to believe that worldly wickedness indicated ability. He thought to be bad was to be clever. He thought that devotion to wine, women and infidelity gave proof of superior intelligence. He affected a wickedness he did not feel, because such wickedness, in his estimation, was good form.” To this description, Edmonds asks, “Was it spite that made Seward so vindictive toward the Southern people?” (p. 158)

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 2.

More Southern articles.

Mosaic Economics

Mosaic Economics

Thomas Allen

In Moses the Economist (1947, Editor Ben Williams, Reprinted 2009, American Christian Ministries), C.F. Parker gives his understanding of Mosaic economics as described in the Pentateuch. Some of his descriptions and my comments follow.

– Value. Parker believes that the value of the labor used to provide a product or service determines its value. (Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx held this view.) The opinion of the consumer is irrelevant. Thus, if the labor value of a product is $100 and the consumer values it at $50, the product cannot be sold for $50. To sell it for $50 would cheat the workers of their due wages and would be an ill-gotten gain for the consumer, who has cheated the workers out of part of their wages. For the product to sit on the shelf and deteriorate is better than selling it for less than $100. How the workers are better off losing $100 by the product deteriorating to worthlessness than losing $50, Parker does not explain.

Like most people, he has the cost of labor and materials determining the selling price of the product backward. The cost of labor and other inputs to produce a product does not determine the selling price of the product. The marginal consumer does. What the consumer is willing to pay for a product determines the cost of the labor and other inputs in the production of the product.

– Taxes. Farmers bear the primary burden of funding the government. They pay 10 percent of their crops and increase in herds to the government. (If their herds decrease, does this the government reimburses them for 10 percent of their loss — probably not.) However, they pay their taxes in products and livestock instead of money.

To provide additional revenue (taxes) for the government, Parker extends this principle to manufacturers. Through some convoluted reasoning, he concludes that the use of tools powered by steam or electricity produced by coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium, water, and now wind and solar makes their products equivalent to agriculture. Consequently, manufacturers would pay the government 10 percent of what they produce. Thus, applying the agricultural equivalency, an automobile manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the cars and trucks that he produces. A spark plug manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the spark plugs produced. In like manner, a toy manufacturer would pay the government 10 percent of the toys that he produces. And, likewise, for other manufacturers.

However, if furniture manufacturers or seamstresses used no power tools in producing their furniture or apparel, they pay no taxes. Yet, if they use power tools, such as electric saws and drills and electric sowing machines, they pay 10 percent of their products to the government.

Providers of services are exempted from taxation. For some strange reason, Parker puts miners, who extract God-given ore from the ground, in the nontaxpaying category. Although he is unclear whether extractors of petroleum, natural gas, and coal pay taxes or not, he seems to place them in the nontaxpaying category.

Parker does not address solar and wind energy because when he wrote his book, they were not used to produce electricity, although the wind was used to grind grain, pump water, and move ships. However, based on his agricultural principle, since God provides the wind and sun, people who use them to produce electricity should give the government 10 percent of the electricity that they produce.

– Land. Parker is a proponent of the jubilee where all land returns to the original owner every 50 years. For the Western Hemisphere, this means that all land return to the Indians (who gets the land of the extinct Indian tribes?). Or, it returns to the monarchs of Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Russia. If the principle of the right of conquest, the land belongs to whoever conquers it, is applied as it is applied to the Israelite’s conquest of Canaan, then the aforementioned monarchs are the original owners since the land was conquered for them and in their name. Consequently, the Indians have no claim. (See “Jubilee” by Thomas Allen.)

– Usury, Loans, and Debt. Of course, charging interest including fees, which is interest by another name, on loans is prohibited. Moreover, all debts are canceled after seven years —not seven years from when the loan is made but a fixed calendar seven years for all loans. Thus, a loan may be canceled a year after it is made. (See “Questions for Anti-Usurers” by Thomas Allen.)

If all debt is canceled every seven years, then all paper money and its electronic equivalent including checkbook money become void every seven years. These types of money are obligations, i.e., debts. Parker seems not to recognize this cancellation of credit or representative money, which he believes is real money like full-weight gold and silver coins. His confusion about money derives from his belief that money is a mere token. (See “What Is Money?”,  "What Are the Functions of Money,” and “What Is the Difference Between Commodity and Fiat Money” by Thomas Allen)

Although Parker does not realize it, his anti-usury stance if carried to its logical conclusion forbids farmers from saving part of their crop as seed for the next season. Deciding how much to consume now and how much to save for future consumption involves interest, usury.

Furthermore, even the holdings of Social Security, of which Parker approves, would cease to exist every seven years because they are obligations (debts) owed to the participants.

– Money. Further, Parker has little understanding of commodity money, e.g., gold and silver, and a commodity monetary system, e.g., the gold standard. He believes that the monetary commodity has a different value, usually, a lower value, from the commodity stamped as a coin. Under a true commodity standard, the commodity has approximately the same value as an equivalent weight of the commodity when stamped as a coin. Money has value in and of itself that is independent of any image, words, or numbers stamped on it. The weight of the commodity in the coin is what gives it value and not what is stamped on it. (If the monetary value of a currency exceeds the commodity of which it is made, as with paper money, it represents real commodity money and is, therefore, an obligation to pay real commodity money, i.e., it is a debt payable in real commodity money.)

If he had looked in Genesis, he would have found the attributes of real money, which are quantity, a measure of weight, and substance. According to Genesis 23:16, Abraham bought a burial plot. He paid 400 (quantity) shekels (measurement of weight) of silver (substance). All commodity money has these three attributes, which makes money more than a mere token.

Therefore, a token even if used as a medium of exchange is not Biblical money. When used as a medium of exchange, token money represents money and passes the obligation to pay real money from one person to another. When the seven-year debt cancellation comes, token money becomes a canceled debt, and the person holding it is cheated out of whatever value it had as a medium of exchange.

Nevertheless, Parker is correct about money itself not being wealth. However, the gold in a gold coin is wealth as gold bullion. (See “What is the Gold Standard?” by Thomas Allen.)

– Banks. Banking as known today would cease to exist. People who wanted to save their money in a secured vault would have to pay someone to protect their money in a vault.

As for checking accounts, people would have to pay a depositary to hold their money against which they could write checks. They may also have to pay when a check is cashed or money is transferred from one account to another account. A return to yesteryear where bill collectors visited people’s houses or businesses to collect payment may return. Most likely, people may have to visit centralized offices to pay their bills as that would be the cheapest way of making payments.

– Wages. According to Parker, people should be paid according to their effective endeavors. Also, he seems to argue for a wage system that is akin to what progressives promote from time to time. Some governmental bureaucrats establish a relative pay scale for each type of job based on their opinion of its importance and on the labor required for that job. 

Nevertheless, he maintains that workers who work more efficiently acquire more wealth than less efficient workers. The incompetent and slackers become impoverished. He is a proponent of meritocracy in the workplace, which the free market generally provides when the government does not interfere with employment.

According to Parker’s understanding of Mosaic economics, wealth is fixed and is the aggregate of the rivers, lakes, oceans, soil, plants, animals, atmosphere, and the like. Wealth has nothing to do with human intelligence in organizing and using these resources. Thus, African countries rich in resources should be wealthier than Singapore, which is extremely poor in natural resources, but most are not.

– Stocks. Corporations with publicly traded stock would cease to exist under Parker’s Mosaic economics. Paying dividends on stock is outlawed because the owner of the stock did not earn the money. Moreover, one could never sell a stock for more than he paid for it because that is ill-gotten gain. Likewise, apparently, one could never sell a stock for less than what he paid for it because that would be an ill-gotten gain for the buyer. 

– Abundances and Scarcities. Buying items such as generators and food in a region of plenty and selling them in a region of want because of a natural disaster, war, or otherwise at a price above what existed before the disaster is forbidden. One must sell the item at the predisaster market price. (Higher prices mean stronger demand relative to the supply and are a signal for more supply. By fixing prices, Parker denies this signal. He appears to have a great deal of confidence in the integrity and the subjective opinions of governmental bureaucrats to move products from a region of abundance to a region of scarcity. He seems to want to eliminate the free market.)

Moreover, in a region that has an abundance of agricultural products, he would prohibit selling the products below the pre-abundant price. To do so would cheat the farmer. Apparently, the farmer and presumably the consumer benefit more from the excess crops rotting away than from selling them at a lower price.

– Selling Used Items. Selling a used product, including antiques and old masterpiece paintings, for a profit is forbidden. One cannot sell a used product for more than what he paid for it (or the original price if the original price is lower). Consequently, if a person inherits a painting, jewelry, furniture, or anything else whose original price is unknown, he cannot sell it.

Moreover, stamp and coin collecting as an investment would cease to exist. One can never sell a stamp or coin for more than its face value.

– Insurance. Private insurance is verboten. Nevertheless, Parker accepts governmentally run Ponzi schemes like social security, which is often called insurance.

– Conclusions. If implemented, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, would be detrimental to today’s economy. A small minority of the country, the farmers and manufacturers, bear the tax burden; the remainder remains untaxed. This dearth of taxes does keep the government small and, therefore, limited. The government could not make up for the shortfall by deficient spending as the cancellation of debt every seven years and the illegality of charging interest would prevent most people from lending to the government.

Further, his explanation of money is flawed. Also, his requirement for governmental price fixing is highly destructive and would create continuous surplus and shortages. He asserts that the value or price of labor in producing and distributing products fixes their value or price; the subjective opinion of the consumer, i.e., what the consumer is willing to pay for the product is irrelevant in fixing its value or price. His demand to abolish interest would cause the consumption of capital until society reverts to the hunter-gatherer stage. (See “Usury” by Thomas Allen.) 

Moreover, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, relies heavily on the wisdom, integrity, altruism, and near omniscience of governmental bureaucrats. Although historically and biblically, governments have been much more doers of evil than doers of good, Parker displays a childlike trust and confidence in governments always being doers of good.

Parker is convinced that Mosaic economics as he understands it will eliminate poverty. However, instead of making the country prosperous as he claims, his proposals would impoverish the country.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More economic articles.

Calhoun and States’ Rights

Calhoun and States’ Rights

Thomas Allen

In Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776-1865 (McClellanville, South Carolina: Abbeville Institute Press, 2021), Luigi Marco Bassani discusses John C. Calhoun’s concept of States’ rights. The following summarizes that discussion.

Calhoun used “State” to designate the people of a State and not its government, which the people (body politic of that State) created. Each State was a self-governing political community, and the people of each State were the sovereign authority — not their government. Concurrent majority and the concept that the Constitution was an agreement between the States were the core features of Calhoun’s political thoughts. Thus, he objected to the notion that a simple numerical majority should decide all political issues.

According to Calhoun, sovereignty belonged either to the States or to the Union. Because sovereignty was indivisible, it could not belong to both. He argued that sovereignty resided in the people of the individual States and not in the people of the Union as a whole.

Calhoun asserted that the Supremacy Clause invested no power in the federal government. It clearly did not establish the supremacy of the federal government. Further, he maintained that the authority of the federal government set up by the Constitution was limited to the delegated powers and that laws enacted pursuant to these delegated powers were supreme. However, the Supremacy Clause did not extend beyond these delegated powers, i.e., the supremacy of the federal government is not absolute. The States and the people of the States retained all authority not expressly delegated to the federal government.

Conflict, according to Calhoun, did not originate in society. Governmental action caused conflict by creating two opposite social classes: taxpayers and tax consumers. Moreover, suffrage led to conflict between the different interests in a community because each interest strove to obtain the power to protect itself from the others and to advance its own agenda. However, conflicting interests did not lead to a government. Politics was what caused the conflict between various interests.

Calhoun thought equalizing the fiscal appropriations of a government was impossible. Taxation and public expenditures caused two conflicting interests. While those who controlled the government benefitted from the taxes, those who did not control the government paid more in taxes than they received back in disbursements. Consequently, political power, government, is the cause of conflict in society.

For many years, Calhoun sought in the Constitution the defense against the federal government’s intrusions. He based his arguments on the individual States being contracting parties to and, therefore, the real principals of the Constitution.

The Constitution centered around the States. This centralness appeared in how Representatives and Senators were chosen. The people of the several States chose members of the House of Representatives. The legislatures of the States elected senators. (Now, the people of each State elect that State’s Senators via the seventeenth amendment.) Representatives and Senators must be inhabitants of the State from which they are elected. Moreover, Representatives were never considered a delegate of a part of the American people.

Calhoun noted that States were the source of the federal government’s political powers. Political power flowed from the States to the federal government and never vice-versa. The Constitution gave certain powers to the federal government and prohibited others. However, it never gave any powers to the States; it only prohibited certain powers. All powers that the States did not expressly delegate to the federal government, they reserved for themselves, i.e., the States retained all powers not expressly delegated. Thus, the Constitution established a federal government with highly limited powers.

For Calhoun, the States were the sole actors in the Union. Unlike Jefferson, who favored a federal-type relationship between centers of government within a State, Calhoun did not. He favored a simple administrative relationship between the State government and local authorities. However, he believed that the United States were an authentic federation.

Calhoun objected to governmental interference in the economic pursuits of individuals, who understood their own interests better than any government. Accordingly, he supported free trade and, therefore, low tariffs. Fervently, he objected to protective tariffs and the South paying disproportionately a much larger share of federal revenue than the North paid. Consequently, the North was exploiting southern producers and consumers for the benefit of the northern manufacturing industry. This redistribution of wealth was not limited to the South. It also was used against northern workers and would result in a class struggle — all courtesy of the federal government.

Furthermore, Calhoun recognized that the centralization and concentration of power in the federal government were being used for northern interest and were causing corruption that threatened the freedom of the country. Interposition by the States was the solution to this centralization of power. However, States could not interpose their authority to interfere with the powers that the Constitution expressly delegated to the federal government. Likewise, the federal government could not interfere with the powers that the States had retained for themselves.

Moreover, the Constitution was based on distinguishing between government and sovereignty. Governmental powers resided in the institutions either of the States or the federal government. Sovereignty resided in the people of each State respectively. Three-fourths of the States were the final constitutional authority.

Because the Constitution created the departments of the federal government, sovereignty did not and could not reside in any department of the federal government. Their sole purpose was to execute the provisions of the Constitution. Any act of the federal government that altered the nature of the Constitution or changed any condition of the parties to it was usurpation.

Calhoun believed that the Supreme Court might judge acts of a State whether they violated the constitutional prerogatives of the federal government. However, the Supreme Court should not and could not legitimately judge an act of the federal government whether it violated the constitutional prerogatives of a State. For the Supreme Court to do so placed it above the States that created the Constitution and vested in it the power to alter the powers of the federal government and the States. 

Calhoun recognized that the text of the Constitution could not impose practical restraints on the federal government. Reason and justice could never restrain power: Only power could restrain power. Only the States possessed sufficient power to restrain the federal government. Therefore, each State should have and did have the right to judge for itself if the federal government had violated any of its rights.

Calhoun maintained that the Constitution implicitly allowed secession because it was a contract between sovereign parties. The ratification process proved this conclusion. As distinct political entities independent from each other, the States ratified the Constitution. Moreover, no State was part of the Union under the Constitution until it ratified the Constitution. Furthermore, the Union was a union of sovereign States without a direct link between the federal government and citizens.

Secession had nothing to do with the federal government. It was an act of a State withdrawing from a partnership with the other States. Although secession was extreme, it was not foreign to the constitutional system. However, according to Calhoun, secession did not derive from the contractual nature of the Constitution; it derived from its political nature.

Calhoun rejected the notion of the will of the majority being the will of the people. For him, the “will of the majority” meant a particular interest or coalition of interests that prevailed over others. Like most people of his era, he believed that a government based on a numerical majority was tyrannical by nature. To overcome the tyranny of an absolute numerical majority, he advocated a concurrent majority on all important issues.

For Calhoun, the term “United States” was geographical and not political. However, he conceived of the United States as more than a league of States. Yet, the States should never become a centralized democracy where an absolute majority ruled. Such a rule would result in abandoning constitutional guarantees. Consequently, States should and did have the right to judge as the last resort the limits that the Constitution placed on the federal government. This right should be defended at all costs. Otherwise, the United States would become a dictatorship of the executive branch.

Both Jefferson and Calhoun considered a State to be the people of the State and not the governmental power. However, Jefferson believed that the United States were for a special purpose only while Calhoun believed them to be an assemblage of nations.

For Calhoun, nullification was peaceful in nature and did not damage the prerogatives of the federal government. When a conflict between a State and the other States could not be resolved, the State had to choose either secession or submission. As a political sovereign and partner with the other States in establishing the Union, each State acting individually and independently had the right to secede peacefully.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.